Tuesday Morning Coming Down
by Cackymn
Summary: Part One of Standoff Series, Pre-slash, Gibbs asks Tony a question and everything goes sideways


**_Authors Note: _**_I have some nice friends who supported me in writing this, my first fic. divakat and gibbsandtonysbabe, thank you!_

_Sure do not own a television show. Thanks for the loan._

_My first few stories will be part of the same arc but may differ some what in style and tone, so I am posting them as works rather than chapters._

_Loosely referred to as the Standoff series._

**Tuesday Morning Coming Down**

Tony walked into Gibbs' kitchen at oh-seven-thirty on a Tuesday morning and was relieved to hear footsteps just around the corner. That meant Gibbs was not in the basement, which meant he wouldn't have to go looking for him.

He had been surprised to get an early morning call from Gibbs that didn't involve yet another dead body, but rather something about the Chevy being down. All in a day's work, he supposed, but he'd just as soon get going. He'd already had to stop by his own place.

Gibbs rounded the corner.

"Tony."

His boss seemed to study him for just a second, so briefly it could have been his imagination. He tensed. If Gibbs was anywhere near fully conscious, Tony wanted to be on his toes.

"Uh, 'morning, boss."

"Truck'll be fixed tomorrow. 'Preciate you picking me up."

"No problem, boss."

There was a long pause. Something was bothering Gibbs. He looked irritated. Tony steeled himself. Maybe he was busted. It wouldn't be the first time he and Gibbs had fought about the Rules.

"Could've fooled me."

"Excuse me?"

"Why the hell do you do that, DiNozzo?"

"Do what?"

"Flinch. You just did it again."

_What the fuck?_

"Sorry."

Gibbs pinned him with an icy glare.

Tony shifted a bit. This wasn't at all what he was expecting.

"Boss, I don't know what you're ... I just got here!"

"Apologizing, playing dumb. What's going on, Tony?"

He glanced around, taking in what he had failed to notice upon his arrival. Gibbs' gun and holster were lying on the kitchen table, and his overcoat was nowhere to be seen. Definitely not ready to leave. Whatever Gibbs was up to he was dragging it out, which was unusual.

"Nothing, boss. Normal stuff."

"Normal stuff."

"Yeah."

"Nothing normal about the stuff we deal with, DiNozzo."

That was the damn truth. Yesterday had been bad. One of those Mondays a meth head slaughters a Marine wife in front of her two kids. The guy was being called back from deployment as they spoke. The young Marine would never see his wife again. His last memory of her would be of leaving her. Horrible as it was on the overall scale of horribleness, it would have hit Gibbs even harder.

What really wasn't normal was this conversation.

"So are you gonna tell me?"

"Boss... It would help if I knew what you were talking about."

Gibbs didn't look like he was buying it, but he obliged.

"Why'd you cringe? You're nervous, Tony. Around me."

_Okay._

Anybody with a pulse could be nervous around Gibbs and it wouldn't be a goddam mystery.

"You mean more than I should be? Is there a scale now or something?" He snorted, half-heartedly.

"Feels more like hostility. You do it all the time."

Did he, really? And what did that have to do with anything? This wasn't about Rule Twelve... It felt strange, out of gear.

"Maybe I just don't like head trauma."

That was lame, but Tony was stalling. He was really starting to not like where this was going for him, what his gut was doing to him. He knew why he pretended to be afraid of Gibbs, even over nothing sometimes. He didn't spend a lot of time thinking about it though, especially lately. He didn't realize it had become such a reflex.

And where did Gibbs get off expecting him to explain it? The only thing Gibbs ever asked him anymore was _DiNozzo where the hell have you been_ or _Have you been down to see Abby yet_ or some such. Tony's hostility was justified. It had been necessary, and that was all he knew.

Gibbs had a reply ready. The man had never met an evasion he couldn't topple.

"C'mon, DiNozzo, I don't even remember the last time I sla..."

Tony drew in a sharp breath. Gibbs was notoriously concise, but he never, ever just stopped talking mid-word.

_Oh shit_.

This could not be good. Tony couldn't remember the last time Gibbs had smacked him either, but so what? And why of all the mornings in the long history of mornings had Gibbs chosen this one to question his behavior towards him? Why was he doing it at all?

Pointedly, Tony turned away and started rummaging around the kitchen. He found a bottle of bourbon and two glasses and plunked them onto the table next to Gibbs' gun, badge, and holster. That was the ritual.

Gibbs shot him an exaggerated, questioning look and followed it up with a half smile. "It's not even oh-eight-hundred, Tony."

_Better_.

Maybe that smile meant Gibbs was going to let him off the hook. He knew it was funny - stomping around in a huff, making a dramatic gesture. It reminded him of other times he had made Gibbs laugh, and of how Gibbs had given him a place in the world. Hopefully dragging out the liquor at eight o'clock in the morning would be amusing enough to get Gibbs down from whatever ledge he was on.

Tony grinned in return, but Gibbs had recovered and was giving him the look - face firm but relaxed, eyes steady, curious, implacable. Eyes you could go swimming in, never mind the sharks. It was the same look that worked so well on suspects, made them yearn to talk because they could tell this guy knew... things. It was entirely genuine. It was Gibbs.

It was Gibbs, and Tony should have known better. The smile had not been a cease-fire, and the drama with the bottle wasn't getting anybody out the door.

He sighed. "Okay, what then?"

"Where's the guy I hired?"

_Seriously? Where's the guy who hired me_?

Tony didn't say anything.

"What happened?"

What the hell _was_ up with Gibbs? He was dead serious. Tony dithered.

"What do you mean, what happened? Yesterday, last week, since the beginning of time? Gosh, let me think - there was Pacci, Ari, Kate, Mexico, Paula, Jenny, Lee, Somalia - who would want to forget Somalia? - Mexico again, Franks, stalkers, gunmen, severed heads, hands, and feet, and oh YEAH, a deranged father just blew up half the Navy Yard, and, you know..."

"Yeah, I know all that. What happened?"

Tony just looked at Gibbs. He honestly couldn't think of anything to say.

Gibbs waited him out.

"Boss, I... what are you asking me?"

He said it quietly, hoping he didn't sound as shaken as he felt.

"To you, Tony. What happened to _you_? You're a million miles away. Tell me."

There was something more than a command in Gibbs' tone. Tony couldn't quite put his finger on it, he didn't like it, and it totally got to him. His concerns from earlier this morning were forgotten. It could have been years ago.

Years ago, fuck.

He sighed again. So this was it? A morning almost like any other, out of the blue? No time to think, nothing? Tony was feeling more dislocated with each passing second. He hadn't seen anything like this coming, not like this, not at all. He didn't have to do it, he could hold back.

_Screw it. Let the bastard have it_.

He took a deep breath.

"You, Gibbs. Alright? You happened!"

Gibbs' brows came together a fraction, and his face was very still, bottom lip just over his teeth. Tony knew the expression; it could be a prelude to anything.

He watched Gibbs inhale a couple of times. His lips barely moved when spoke.

"Didn't happen, DiNozzo."

"Yeah."

The word came out hard and bitter, more so than Tony intended. He flushed darkly and his eyes swept the floor. When he looked up, Gibbs' hands were spread at his sides, palms out. His chin tilted up ever so slightly.

"Tony." It was almost a whisper. "What did you expect?"

Tony felt a sensation like all the air whooshing out of his lungs, and the words came tumbling out.

"I don't know, boss... Gibbs. I don't know anymore. It just seems like we used to be something - I don't know what - but something. Something that was headed somewhere? Something that went away."

God, what was he doing? Gibbs couldn't possibly want to know the whole of it. But he had asked, and it seemed so pointless, so impossible really, here with no one else watching, to lie. Never lie to Gibbs.

And there was something different about Gibbs today. Gibbs, who had always had his back, who had stood up to Vance and the SecNav, among others. Not that Gibbs gave a shit about authority when he had a dog in the fight- he didn't. He had always just done whatever it took. Except in this.

Tony thought of the hours the two of them had spent in companionable friendship, on and off the job. Could Gibbs have understood the hours he'd spent alone in his apartment, drowning - drinking, helpless, wanting?

Gibbs leaned against the counter, not saying anything. His face was unreadable.

_So much for that._..

Tony tried again. This was so messed up.

"Look boss, it's ok. I get it. Guys like us, we don't..."

To Tony's surprise, Gibbs pushed off from the counter and raised his voice.

"Is THAT what you think?! Is THAT why you've been knocking on the door with Ziva all these years without closing the deal?!"

"What! Is that what YOU think?!"

"Tony, I'd have known if you had!"

"Bullsh..."

"I. Would. Have. Known."

_Oh, no. Make sense, Gibbs. Please._

"Yeah? Then what were you waiting for!"

"You, Tony!"

"Me?!"

"Yeah, you, dumb-ass!"

Tony stepped back, incredulous. Gibbs was admitting it. He was going there, now. Really? Now?

_Fuckfuckfuck._

At one time, at many times, this would have been the moment- the moment to set the spark, get the iron into the fire and hammer out the truth of what was between them.

Tony wanted to feel butterflies in his stomach, feel the shivering sense of anticipation that used to keep him alive. Instead he felt sick, confused, burned out. Years of obstacles and paralysis had done their work. And while a part of him registered satisfaction at not having been delusional after all, the rest of him was just sad. Sorry for them both, bummed that he wasn't a whole lot angrier. Goddam Gibbs. What a fucking waste. Mouth set, eyes wet and dark, Tony refocused.

Gibbs was watching him, reading his mind. All of it.

The look in Gibbs' eyes nearly stopped Tony's heart. Gibbs looked shocked, torn apart.

_This isn't happening_.

One look, and the extent of Tony's own mistakes came crashing in on him- everything he had never done and every thought he had tried to push away.

It wasn't all his fault, but still. He'd had a lot of years. Why had he always just assumed it would have to be Gibbs who opened the door?

For so long he had been playing defense, frustrated and then angry at Gibbs for not following up. Tony had never quite believed that he just imagined what had blown his mind in Baltimore, and after: Gibbs looking at him as no one ever had, before or since. But had he given the man a sign, any indication that he was slowing down and taking stock of things? No, he had continued banging a new girl every other week or, when that wasn't working out, he had pretended to chase everything he saw.

And, out of long habit, he had never let up on Ziva.

Really, what _had_ he expected? Flowers, a note? He had wanted an all-out assault, a surprise attack to match his fantasies. A rough, whispered command at the end of a day - _my place, DiNozzo_. Or for one of those long looks to have finally spelled out an invitation. And when that hadn't happened...

Suddenly ashamed, Tony recalled again the times Gibbs had fought to keep him around, or had in his own way overcome the strains on their relationship. He had gotten him off the Seahawk and back to D.C. He had faced down pneumonic plague at Tony's side. And the FBI... And his fucking dad...

_Shit._

From one point of view, Gibbs had been doing all the heavy lifting. How had he missed it? Maybe there had been just a little too much good and not quite enough bad, although there had been plenty. Somehow he had convinced himself that the status quo was what he stood to lose. When he wasn't feeling sorry for himself. When he wasn't being a total dick.

Tony stood looking at the man whose personality had helped shape him, whose leadership he depended on, whose ridiculous beauty had driven him almost insane more times than he could count, and he knew he was going to have to will himself to move.

Gibbs broke the silence, and his voice was ragged. It sounded sad, and it sounded pissed.

"Jesus Christ, Tony."

Nothing more.

Tony did move then, fast. Not tearing his eyes away until the last possible instant, he poured himself a drink, downed it in one swallow, and left.

When he got to his car, it was getting cold outside, but Tony wanted to be colder. He threw his coat into the backseat and retrieved his phone from the dash. He had left it outside for a reason and sure enough, it rang. He cleared his throat.

"Hi."

"Good morning again, Tony! You are picking up Gibbs?"

"No. Missed him. Looks like I was running late."

NEXT: An Inconvenient Truth (Gibbs POV)


End file.
